The Way Forward
/It is no good getting furious if you get stuck. What I do is keep thinking about the problem but work on something else. Sometimes it is years before I see the way forward. -Stephen Hawking
Make Space for Growth & Surprises
21 Articles about AI & Legal Issues
/85 Predictions for AI and the Law in 2026 – National Law Review
How Judges Are Using AI to Help Decide Your Legal Dispute - Wall Street Journal
New York Times publisher: AI is using our facts without paying for them – Mediate
AI Surveillance Systems Are Causing a Staggering Number of Wrongful Arrests – Futurism
Researchers find compelling evidence that AI models are copying data, not just learning from it – Futurism
The NYT sued Perplexity claiming it repeatedly used its copyrighted work without permission. – New York Times
Matthew McConaughey Trademarks Himself to Fight AI Misuse – Wall Street Journal
Say Goodbye to the Billable Hour, Thanks to AI – Wall Street Journal
Deepfake of North Carolina lawmaker used in award-winning Whirlpool video - Washington Post
Prosecutor Used Flawed A.I. to Keep a Man in Jail, His Lawyers Say - New York Times
AI jury finds teen not guilty: The mock trial at the UNC School of Law raises questions about AI’s role in criminal justice. – University of North Carolina
Is AI making some people delusional? Families and experts are worried – LA Times
White House drafts order directing Justice Department to sue states that pass AI regulations - Washington Post
Who Pays When A.I. Is Wrong? - New York Times
OpenAI fights order to turn over millions of ChatGPT conversations – Reuters
I Built a Python Script to Make 10,000 Laws Understandable – Hackeroon
AI's Copyright Dilemma Affects All of Us, Even You. Here's What You Need to Know – CNET
Vigilante Lawyers Expose the Rising Tide of A.I. Slop in Court Filings - New York Times
An online database tracking AI “fabricated cases” cited in court filings - Damien Charlotin
South Korea launches landmark laws to regulate AI, startups warn of compliance burdens – Reuters
AI definitions: Open Source AI
/Open Source AI – The underlying source code of an AI is available to the public, including other businesses and researchers. It can be used, modified, and improved by anyone. Closed AI means access to the code is tightly controlled by the company that produced it. The closed model gives users greater certainty as to what they are getting, but open source allows for more innovation. Of course, once it’s out in the wild, open-source AI is impossible to corral. It could be used to spread disinformation or cause other serious harm. Open-source AI would include Stable Diffusion, Hugging Face, Llama (created by Meta), and DeepSeek (from China). Closed Source AI would include Google’s Bard and, despite its name, OpenAI (creator of ChatGPT).
An AI Prompt Strategy
/The difference between a bot with access to infinite knowledge and a good human doctor is that the doctor knows how to answer a question with more questions. That’s how you actually solve someone’s problem. An AI strategy I now use regularly: front-load your queries to a chatbot with as many details as you can think of, knowing that the AI might not stop to ask for some of them before trying to answer. Instead of “summarize this lease,” try “summarize this lease for a renter in D.C., flagging clauses about fees, renewal and early termination.” -Washington Post
Refused
/I have had prayers answered - most strangely so sometimes - but I think our heavenly Father's loving kindness has been even more evident in what He has refused me. -Lewis Carroll, born Jan. 27, 1832
24 Articles about Relationships with AI
/She built an AI bot of her mother to help her grieve – Rest of World
AI romance is not a bug It’s Big Tech’s most dangerous feature. – Fast Company
Could AI relationships actually be good for us? - The Guardian
A religious fervor surrounds our relationship with technology. – New York Times
Inside Google's vision to make Gmail your personal AI agent command center - ZDnet
AI Romance is Perverse – Christianity Today
They hear, but do they care? What AI can teach us about listening better – BBC
People Are Paying $99 a Month to Talk to a Tony Robbins Chatbot – Wall Street Journal
Recovering from AI delusions means learning to chat to humans again – Washington Post
AI companions: "The new imaginary friend" redefining children's friendships – Axios
A mom thought her daughter was texting friends before her suicide. It was an AI chatbot. – CBS News
A teen’s final weeks with ChatGPT illustrate the AI suicide crisis - The Washington Post
A Prompt Engineering Framework for Large Language Model-Based Mental Health Chatbots - PubMed
Empathetic, Available, Cheap: When A.I. Offers What Doctors Don’t – New York Times
Teens Are Saying Tearful Goodbyes to Their AI Companions - Wall Street Journal
The Biggest AI Companies Met to Find a Better Path for Chatbot Companions – Wired
Is AI making some people delusional? Families and experts are worried – LA Times
Instead of an AI Health Coach, You Could Just Have Friends – Wired
Admit it, You're in a Relationship with AI – Bloomberg
The People who Marry Chatbots – The Atlantic
Google and Character.AI to Settle Lawsuit Over Teenager’s Death - New York Times
AI companions: "The new imaginary friend" redefining children's friendships - Axios
There is no security
/There is no security on this earth, there is only opportunity. -General Douglas MacArthur (born Jan. 26, 1880)
24 Webinars this week about AI, Journalism & Media
/Tue, Jan 27- Journalism, Media, & Technology Trends and Predictions 2026
What: This report examines how generative AI, shifting audience behaviors, and the rise of creators are accelerating change across the news industry. Join the lead as he presents and discusses the report’s key findings.
Who: Mitali Mukherjee Director, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism; Nic Newman, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism; Joanna Webster, Global Editor, Agency News Strategy, Reuters.
When: 9 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism
Tue, Jan 27- Rethinking Visual Design in eLearning with Generative AI
What: We’ll explore how AI-powered image generation is reshaping the way instructional designers create visuals for eLearning. You’ll see how generative AI can help you move beyond generic stock images to create purposeful, contextual, and consistent visuals—faster than ever before.
Who: Sharath Ramaswamy Senior eLearning Evangelist, Adobe.
When: 11 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Adobe
Tue, Jan 27- How journalism collaboratives can accept corporate sponsorships
What: This webinar will help collaboratives understand the range of sponsorship opportunities, including in-kind partnerships, event sponsorship support, and funding for editorial projects, with a focus on how they can work effectively for journalism collaboratives.
Who: Emily Dresslar, Partnerships & Philanthropy at The Assembly.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Center for Cooperative Media
Tue, Jan 27- Enhancing independence with the Meta Glasses
What: This workshop will explore the emerging role of Meta Glasses as assistive technology and examine how wearable AI can enhance independence and everyday functioning for people with diverse needs. We will highlight features such as object identification and text interpretation, along with practical examples across school, work, home, and community settings. The session will also demonstrate how the glasses can be pivotal for users with mobility limitations, low vision, or executive function challenges.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Pacer Center
Tue, Jan 27- 2026 AI Trends That Will Transform Your Organization
What: Learn practical strategies to strengthen digital visibility, protect your data, personalize outreach at scale, and streamline internal processes with intelligent automation. Whether your organization is just beginning its AI journey or is looking to accelerate adoption, this presentation and Q&A will empower you to confidently navigate the future and position your team for long-term success. Tapp Network will guide you through actionable steps to harness AI as a strategic advantage and become a leader in innovation within your industry.
Who: Joe DiGiovanni, Tapp Network, Co-Founder; Kyle Barkins, Tapp Network , Co-Founder.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: TechSoup
Tue, Jan 27- Should publishers block AI bots from scraping their content?
What: We will show you how AI actually impacts different types of publishers, how blocking AI bots impacts your visibility and website traffic, loopholes that AI companies use to scrape your content, and how to block AI bots effectively.
Who: Eric Shanfelt Founding Partner, Nearview Media.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Local Media Association
Tue, Jan 27- Ghostwriting, Meet AI: Build a Custom GPT That Captures Your Exec’s Voice
What: We will guide you step-by-step through building a GPT that writes in your executive’s voice. Following this webinar, you’ll have a tool ready to draft posts, speeches, internal memos or thought-leadership pieces, retaining tone, cadence and personality while giving your team speed and scale.
Who: Allison Carter is the editor-in-chief of PR Daily and Ragan Communications.
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: $40 members.
Sponsor: Public Relations Society of America
Wed, Jan 28 - Datawrapper’s API: A Beginner’s Guide with Python
What: How to use Datawrapper’s API with Python to automate chart creation and integrate data visualization into your workflow.
Who: Datawrapper Product Specialist Guillermina Sutter Schneider.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Datawrapper
Wed, Jan 28 - ChatGPT at Work: What Top Performers are Doing Differently
What: We’ll share what top-performing ChatGPT users do differently to change how they work, their impact, and their career trajectory.
Who: Jen Beltran, AI Deployment Manager, OpenAI.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: OpenAI Academy
Wed, Jan 28 - Building AI-Ready Teams: Unlocking Your People’s Potential in Partnership With AI
What: In this webinar, you’ll learn how to: Build your team’s confidence in using AI and clarity around its use within your organization; Model responsible use, remove roadblocks and celebrate wins so that new workflows stick and scale; Spot high-value AI opportunities and create repeatable habits that spread AI adoption and results; Guide yourself and your team to use AI with purpose, consistency and measurable outcomes.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: FranklinCovey
Wed, Jan 28 - Freelance Pitch Panel
What: Freelancers of all experience levels will learn from seasoned editors about best pitching practices and common pitching pitfalls, have their pitches critiqued and get advice on how to build a robust and diverse freelance portfolio.
Who: Allison Entrekin, Executive Editor, Southbound Magazine; Paul Fain, Co-founder and Editor, Work Shift; Lou Harry, Editor-in-Chief, Quill Magazine; Collin Kelley, Executive Editor, Atlanta Intown and Rough Draft; Laura Kate Whitney, Editor-at-Large, Good Grit.
Mark Woolsey, SPJ Georgia At-Large Board Member
When: 6:30 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Society of Professional Journalists, Georgia
Wed, Jan 28 - AI-Palooza: Tools for Journalists & Communicators
What: Ways journalists and communicators can use AI ethically, enabling both groups to do their jobs smarter and better.
Who: Benét Wilson, owner/editor-in-chief of Aviation Queen.
When: 7 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: National Association of Black Journalists
Wed, Jan 28 - Citizen Journalism 101: Local Voices, Real Stories
What: The Power of Local Stories — Mission, Ideas & Purpose - Why local journalism matters — from holding power to celebrating people. Explore different types of stories; Finding your first story; Where stories begin.
Who: Journalist Kristin Palpini.
When: 7 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Urban Media Arts
Thu, Jan 29 - Collecting Public Opinion During Conflict
What: How AI-assisted methods can be applied to actual public opinion research, especially on highly sensitive and polarized issues. It provides valuable insights for exploring new methods of polling and consensus-building.
Who: Andrew Konya, Remesh USA.
When: 9 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: World Association for Public Opinion Research
Thu, Jan 29 - Social Media Marketing
What: This session breaks down social media marketing into manageable steps you can actually maintain. You’ll learn: How to choose the right platforms for your business; What types of posts work best; How to stay consistent without burnout.
When: 11:30 am
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Small Business Development Center, Gannon University
Thu, Jan 29 - Disinformation Detox: Teaching Disinformation from Inside the Information Ecosystem
What: Participants will leave with a complete worked example of the assignment, a menu of theoretical lenses.This session is designed for media and information literacy educators who want to move beyond fact-checking checklists toward pedagogical practices that mirror the complexity of the information systems our students inhabit.
Who: Gina Marcello, Rutgers University.
When: 12 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Media Education Lab
Thu, Jan 29 - Covering Policies that Restrict DEI
What: Hear from a policy analyst, civil rights lawyer and journalist who can provide attendees with insights into policies and legislation from the state house to the White House. Reporters can expect to walk away with tools to stay ahead of the story and avoid missing critical developments happening in legislative halls, federal agencies, college campuses and classrooms.
Who: Arthur Coleman, founding partner, EducationCounsel; Heidi Tseu, assistant vice president of national engagement, American Council on Education; Brooklyn Draisey, higher education reporter, Iowa Capital Dispatch.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Education Writers Association
Thu, Jan 29 - The 2026 Advertising Reset: Frameworks for AI and Measurement
What: How to support faster audience creation, more resilient measurement, and smarter budget decisions across paid media, without sacrificing governance or control. You’ll see how leaders are navigating new advertising hurdles with AI-driven systems that connect audience intelligence, real-time qualification, rapid experimentation, and continuous optimization.
Who: Sohail Wadera, Senior Engineering Manager, Autodesk; Colleen Wolfe, Uniphore.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Uniphore
Thu, Jan 29 - Copyright in the Age of Generative AI
What: Stay informed on how shifting copyright laws and policy debates are responding to generative AI. This session explores recent legislative developments, emerging case law, and practical guidance for libraries navigating AI driven content and copyright questions.
When: 1 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Idaho Commission for Libraries
Thu, Jan 29 - Strategies for Overcoming Writer's Block
What: Tips and tricks that will get you in the flow and writing like a professional. Whether you're a beginner or advanced, these tools are ones that anyone will find enlightening and invaluable.
Who: Derek Taylor Kent is the author of 19 books.
When: 1:30 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Author Learning Center
Thu, Jan 29 - What’s New with AI in PowerPoint Copilot?
What: You’ll see how Copilot can help develop story outlines that relate to your audience, create highly graphic slides, manipulate images, update data, align slide content, and create useful summaries and handouts to share as resources afterwards. And, given that this is being written several months before we go live, who knows what else will come through.
Who: Richard Goring, Director, BrightCarbon.
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: ispring
Thu, Jan 29 - Amplify your voice: How to build credibility and connections on LinkedIn
What: How to use LinkedIn with the intention to build authentic connections, expand your reach, and strengthen your professional reputation.
Who: Cory Welsh, LinkedIn
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: USC Anneberg School for Communication & Journalism
Fri, Jan 30 - How to Legally Protect Your Newsgathering, with the Cornell First Amendment Clinic's Local Journalism Project
What: A free webinar for journalists on how they can legally protect their newsgathering. The program will include a refresher on the basics of defamation law, how to strengthen an article against any potential defamation claim, what to avoid in terms of internal communications that could be twisted in later litigation, best practices for protecting sources, your right to record law enforcement, etc.
When: 11 am, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: The Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic
Fri, Jan 30 - ASERL Copyright Office Hour
What: Please bring your puzzling and perplexing copyright questions.
When: 3 pm, Eastern
Where: Zoom
Cost: Free
Sponsor: Association of Southeastern Research Libraries
LLM Strengths & Weaknesses
/Large Language Models have demonstrated impressive capabilities in reasoning and planning [but] LLM-based agents continue to fail in complex, multi-step planning tasks. More from a paper published in Arxiv
Life is About
/Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain. - Vivian Greene
Knowledge collapse
/In a world where AI increasingly mediates access to knowledge, future generations might lose connection with vast bodies of experience, insight and wisdom. AI developers might argue that this is simply a data problem, solvable by incorporating more diverse sources into training datasets. While that might be technically possible, the challenges of data sourcing, prioritization and representation are far more complex than such a solution implies. - Deepak Varuvel Dennisonis
AI Definitions: Liquid Foundation Models
/Liquid Foundation Models (LFM) – This type of AI has a smaller memory footprint but packs greater computational power than the transformer models found in most GenAI systems. Using fewer parameters and neurons than transformers, LFMs are designed to handle a variety of sequential data (such as text, video, and audio) with significant accuracy. LFMs do not rely on existing frameworks as transformers do. They are built from the ground up (that is, built on “first principles”).
Change Talk
/Sermonizing about goals is change-talk. But not growth-talk. Each has a place and a time, but they are not to be mistaken for each other. We may be fooling ourselves, thinking we are moving forward — when really, on the inside, we are idle, going nowhere.
17 Recent Articles about AI Fakes
/AI Surveillance Systems Are Causing a Staggering Number of Wrongful Arrests - Futurism
Grok deepfakes accelerate Hill action - Axios
Matthew McConaughey Trademarks Himself to Fight AI Misuse – Wall Street Journal
There’s One Easy Solution to the A.I. Porn Problem – New York Times
Resisting AI slop in Science & Higher Ed – Science.org
A bibliography of genAI-fueled research fraud from 2025 – Sharon Kabel
Publisher under fire after ‘fake’ citations found in AI ethics guide – The Times
Boys at her school shared AI-generated, nude images of her. After a fight, she was the one expelled – Associated Press
Researchers call for retraction of two recent Nature studies about AI-generated crystals – Chemical & Engineering News
More than half of researchers now use AI for peer review — often against guidance – Nature
The rise of deepfake cyberbullying poses a growing problem for schools – Associated Press
This guy’s obscure PhD project is the only thing standing between humanity and AI image chaos – Fast Company
A.I. Videos Have Flooded Social Media. No One Was Ready. - New York Times
How to Spot AI Hallucinations Like a Reference Librarian – Card Catalog for Life
AI Slop Is Spurring Record Requests for Imaginary Journals – Scientific American
More A than I: Testing for Large Language Model Plagiarism in Political Science – Political Science Now
A.I. Videos Have Flooded Social Media. No One Was Ready - New York Times
Bots Can't Spot AI Videos
/Three leading chatbots failed to detect fake videos generated by Sora most of the time.
(Graph by NewsGuard)
True Self
/We grow toward true self in a space where our growth is not driven by external demands but drawn forward, by love, into our best possibilities. -Parker Palmer
18 Articles about AI & the Creative Arts
/Using AI as a Design Engineer – Jakub.kr
The Problem With Letting AI Do the Grunt Work AI is destroying the career ladder for aspiring artists – The Atlantic
8 Ways A.I. Affected Pop Culture in 2025 – New York Times
Universal Music Group and Splice Ink AI Partnership – Hollywood Reporter
AI Is a Gift to Human Creativity When anyone can produce passable work, real talent becomes more readily apparent than ever. – Wall Street Journal
What does it mean to be a designer in the age of AI? - Figma
Inside the Creation of Tilly Norwood, the AI Actress Freaking Out Hollywood - Wall Street Journal
Town’s Christmas art contest ends in scandal: Did the winner use AI? – Washington Post
The Current No. 1 Christian Artist Has No Soul – Christianity Today
AI artists blow up on country music chart – Axios
People can't tell AI-generated music from real thing anymore, survey shows – CBS News
From design to direction: Bridging product design and AI thinking – UX Design
Coca-Cola Injects ‘Holidays Are Coming’ Ads With an Upgraded Dose of AI – Wall Street Journal
More AI actors are in development - Deadline
A handful of creators have been paid more than $1 million to license their videos to AI companies. – Semafor
On AI Removing Creative Constraints – Illusion of More
Using AI for UX Work: Study Guide – NN Group
AI Definitions: Reinforcement Learning
/Reinforcement Learning - Rather than being given specific goals, the AI is deployed into an environment where it can train with minimal feedback. This trial-and-error approach involves adjusting weights until high-reward outcomes are achieved. Desirable behaviors are rewarded, and undesirable behaviors are punished. It is similar to a person learning how to work through levels of a video game, searching for an effective strategy. This type of machine learning sits somewhere in between supervised (by humans) and unsupervised learning. Reinforcement learning is used in video game development and has helped robots adapt to new environments.
Writing your Own Eulogy
/A visualization technique that asks people to write their own eulogy. It’s a technique that Daniel Harkavy, co-author of Living Forward, has been teaching executives for over 20 years.
Harkavy’s tip is to write your eulogy first as if your funeral was today and everything you’ve accomplished so far was all you ever would. “Picture your memorial service as if it were being held right now. Your casket is sitting center stage, and as you look down the center aisle you see the first three rows, usually reserved for those with whom we were closest. Who’s sitting there for you?” he asks. “Most likely your family and dearest friends. Now keep looking down the aisle, and now you’re looking at rows 10 through 20. Who’s sitting there? Probably acquaintances, clients, customers. What did you give to the people in these rows?”
Harkavy says when he walks clients through this exercise during his speaking engagements, they usually all say the same thing: “We gave them our best!” He then asks them what they gave to the people sitting in rows one through three–and their answers usually amount to “We gave them our leftovers.” In other words, their work-life balance is out of whack.
“When you go to write your eulogy, you need to be brutally honest. Don’t pull any punches. You want to really feel this,” Harkavy says. “What would those closest to you say about who you were, how you lived, and what you had to give them, and why would they say that?”
Michael Grothaus writing in Fast Company
LLMs Reflect Western Cultural Value
/It should not come as a surprise that a growing body of studies shows how LLMs predominantly reflect Western cultural values and epistemologies. They overrepresent certain dominant groups in their outputs, reinforce and amplify the biases held by these groups, and are more factually accurate on topics associated with North America and Europe. - Deepak Varuvel Dennisonis